Roy Moore prepares to take the stage Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala., where he announced that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the U.S. Senate race in Alabama.(Photo: Albert Cesare, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser)

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama's secretary of state questioned Wednesday whether provisional or military ballots would alter the results of Tuesday's Senate special election.

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, the GOP nominee, refused to concede after the votes were counted early Wednesday. In unofficial returns, Jones had received more than 671,000 votes, 49.9% of the total; Moore had received more than 650,000 votes, 48.3% of the vote; the remainder were for various write-in candidates.

“A lot of votes are in, but they’re not all in yet,” Bill Armistead, Moore's campaign chairman, told supporters late Tuesday after The Associated Press called the election for Democratic nominee Doug Jones. “There’s a law in Alabama that requires a recount if the vote is one half of one percent.”

It was not immediately clear Wednesday if Moore could request a recount at the current margins. Jones’ 1.5% margin of victory is higher than the 0.5% margin required to trigger a recount.

Secretary of State John Merrill said they had not gotten any official signals from the Moore camp about a recount. State law allows candidates to challenge recounts outside the automatic trigger if they are willing to pay the costs.

“I don’t know how many ballots are going to be returned from overseas voters or how many provisional ballots there are, but I’m confident not all of them are going to be for one candidate,” Merrill said.

Merrill suggested in interviews that Moore have pay for a recount himself, an expensive option. But election law expert Rick Hasen at the University of California, Irvine, noted in a post late Tuesday that Alabama law appears to cover only statewide offices, not federal ones.

“If we need advice or counsel on this matter, we’ll be seeking it from attorneys and judges in the state of Alabama, not attorneys and judges in the state of California,” Merrill said.

Moore appeared in a video released by the campaign late Wednesday, in which he signaled that he would not concede, even as Republicans at the federal and state level appeared to accept the result.

"This has been a very close race, and we are awaiting certification from the Secretary of State," Moore said in the video, which most served as a speech hitting his usual themes of putting religion in the public square, along with attacks on "abortion, sodomy and materialism."

More than 1.3 million ballots were cast in the special election, a 40% turnout that blasted through earlier estimates of 25%. Nearly 23,000 write-in ballots — more than Jones' unofficial margin — also were cast.

“We’ve never had a special election like this,” Merrill said. "This is a record for this kind of special election.”

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Roy Moore announces that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the Alabama Senate race during the Roy Moore Election Night Party on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Albert Cesare / Advertiser

Roy Moore prepares to take the stage where he announced that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the Alabama Senate race during the Roy Moore Election Night Party on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Albert Cesare / Advertiser

Roy Moore announces that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the Alabama Senate race during the Roy Moore Election Night Party on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Albert Cesare / Advertiser

Roy Moore announces that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the Alabama Senate race during the Roy Moore Election Night Party on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Albert Cesare / Advertiser

Roy Moore announces that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the Alabama Senate race during the Roy Moore Election Night Party on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Albert Cesare / Advertiser

Roy Moore announces that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the Alabama Senate race during the Roy Moore Election Night Party on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Albert Cesare / Advertiser

Roy Moore prepares to take the stage where he announced that he will be pursuing a recount of election results that have Doug Jones winning the Alabama Senate race during the Roy Moore Election Night Party on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Montgomery, Ala. Albert Cesare / Advertiser